After the War
by Sera dy Relandrant
Summary: Post Robert's Rebellion. A new kingdom, a new dynasty is built. Three young women build new lives as mothers and wives, with conflicting loyalties and interests, as they travel to their new homes - Cersei Baratheon Lysa Arryn to King's Landing and Catelyn Stark to Winterfell.
1. Lysa: Riverrun

_Gentle Mother, font of mercy,_  
_save our sons from war, we pray,_  
_stay the swords and stay the arrows,_  
_let them know a better day._  
_Gentle Mother, strength of women,_  
_help our daughters through this fray,_  
_soothe the wrath and tame the fury,_  
_teach us all a kinder way._

* * *

_She knelt before the Mother. "My lady, look down on this battle with a mother's eyes. They are all sons, every one. Spare them if you can, and spare my own sons as well. Watch over Robb and Bran and Rickon. Would that I were with them."_

_A crack ran down through the Mother's left eye. It made her look as if she were crying._

_Behind her the torch spit, and suddenly it seemed to her that it was her sister's face on the wall, though the eyes were harder than she recalled,not Lysa's eyes but Cersei's. Cersei is a mother too. No matter who fathered those children, she felt them kick inside her, brought them forth with her pain and blood, nursed them at her breast. If they are truly Jaime's..._

_"Does Cersei pray to you too, my lady?" Catelyn asked the Mother. She could see the proud, cold, lovely features of the Lannister queen etched upon the wall. The crack was still there; even Cersei could weep for her children._

**- A Clash of Kings  
**

* * *

_She remembered the first time she gave her sister Robb to hold; small, red-faced, and squalling, but strong even then, full of life. No sooner had Catelyn placed the babe in her sister's arms than Lysa's face dissolved into tears. Hurriedly she had thrust the baby back at Catelyn and fled._

**- A Storm of Swords**

* * *

He had no name.

Six days had passed and still his mother had not decided on a name for the babe. The morrow would mark the sennight since his birth, the holy seventh day on which he would be named in the rainbow light of the sept and anointed by the seven oils.

Cat had no imagination. In the end Lysa supposed that she would name the baby for their father - Hoster Stark, a sturdy, stalwart name, as good as any. The boy's father would not be there to see him named, might never even see him. He had been born at the hour of the wolf and before daybreak his proud grandfather had dispatched a messenger post-haste to the young Lord Stark. They did not even know if he had heard of the birth of his son yet, for certainly they had received no tidings from him.

When last they'd had word of him, he was racing towards the Trident, towards another battle, another death. Lysa's husband rode with him.

_An old man,_ she thought. _He cannot survive this._ But she had thought so before all of those battles he had fought for his darling boys - before Summerhall and Ashford and Stoney Sept.

Cat's voice roused her from her reveries. "What would you name him if he were yours, sister?"

"He isn't." _But he could have been, _she thought. He was like a little doll swaddled tight and nestled in her sister's arms. He had a soft down of copper hair and eyes as blue as summer skies. And when he smiled, something inside her broke. _He should have been mine. _

Cat was persistent. "But if he were? And your lord husband was not there to advise you, what name would you choose?"

It hurt to look at them, the mother and child. She wanted to hold the baby as Cat did, feel the warmth of his little body against her shoulder, the solid weight of him that might fill the aching emptiness inside her. But she could not - she had burst into tears and fled from the confinement chamber the first time Cat had put him into her arms. It had been too much for her. Sighing, Lysa set down the sewing she had only been pretending to work at and stood up.

"Something from a song. Selwyn for the Knight of the Mirror Shield, perhaps," she said, drifting over to the window.

They had been shuttered and draped for weeks, keeping Cat's room in a perpetual twilight. It was better so for a woman near her time, the old wives said, to ease her passage and keep her calm. Lysa just thought it sad. _How terrible it must be to birth a child in the darkness, _she thought, _and perha__ps never to look upon his face if he does not live. _But now that Cat's confinement was almost over, the midwives had permitted them to be opened.

"You've always been fond of songs," Cat said indulgently.

_And singers_, Lysa thought. Petyr would sing so sweetly for them of a twilight, the bards' old songs and clever ditties that made mock of the people they knew that he made up all by himself. _Father said I was too fond of them for my own good._

"But I do not think Lord Eddard would like it if his heir were named for a song," Cat finished reluctantly.

_If Lord Eddard lives long enough to like it, _Lysa thought maliciously but did not say it aloud.

"I think it would serve if he were named for Uncle," she mused. "Brynden Stark - it sounds well."

"Too close to Brandon," Lysa reminded her. "A good, strong Stark name but your lord might wonder whether you did not name his son for your last betrothed. Have him named for Father and have done with it."

Cat sounded sheepish. "I would but that he looks so like a Tully..."

"He's beautiful," Lysa said sharply. "His father would be a fool not to see that he is the most beautiful, the most perfect baby that ever was."

"Yes indeed but I thought that it might please Eddard more if I gave him a northern name..." Cat trailed off uncertainly.

"Stop fretting. Here's what you should do - write down all the names of all the northern lords you can think of on scraps of paper, toss them together and pick one out. You should find something ugly enough to please the delicate northern sensibilities of your beloved husband."

Cat laughed and began to say something but Lysa stopped her.

"Do you think of him?" Lysa asked her suddenly.

"Why of course I do," Cat said primly. "He is my lord husband. I pray for his safety every night, I pray that he will come quickly to me and see our son." She might have been about to ask Lysa the same question but then she thought better of it.

"And - do you care for him? Do you care for him as you did for Brandon?"

_They rode down the Tumblestone on a skiff, _Lysa remembered. _He wove a chaplet of daisies for her by the riverbank and she let him kiss him under the willows in the godswood. _

She remembered how happy her sister had been, giddy and flushed with love. She had twirled round and round her room with Lysa until they had finally collapsed in bed, giggling and hugging each other. Lysa had never felt so close to her sister, Cat who always tried to be more of a mother to her than a sister, as she had that day. They had both been in love that day, so young and full of hopes and dreams.

And now Cat lay in that same bed with her newborn son in her arms and Lysa stood at the window, looking down at those same willows and that same river, with a hole in her heart.

Cat was slow in answering. "I try not to think of Brandon," she said. That was Catelyn Tully, stoic in her duty. "I think it is for the best that I forget. I respect my husband, I honour him. Perhaps in time I shall care for Lord Eddard as well. Perhaps you will do the same for Lord Jon someday."

Lysa laughed. It was an ugly sound. "No," she said shortly. "I wish he were dead. Perhaps he _is_ dead right now, as he should be - and don't you dare say a thing, Catelyn Tully. If you were me you would wish the same thing."

"I would not."

Well, that was true at least. They were sisters, only two years apart, but sometimes Lysa thought that she might be a changeling. Family, duty, honour - those were the words by which Cat lived her life. Lysa was very differently made.

"Lysa," Cat said tenderly, without a hint of reproach in her voice. "Come here."

Like a little girl, Lysa trotted over to her sister for comfort just as she had always done. She knelt by the side of Cat's bed and let her stroke her hair. Her touch was feather-light and she smelt of cinnamon, as she always did, but underneath there was something different, something sharp and milky, a young mother's smell.

"Oh Lysa, don't cry," Cat sighed, brushing off the tear that trickled down Lysa's cheek. "Shh, sweetling. It will be alright, it will, you'll see. You'll come to love Lord Jon. He might not be young or comely, but he is a good man, an honourable man. He will be tender to you, he will love you just as well as those gallant knights we used to dream of."

Lysa buried her head in the coverlet and shook her head. "I wish he were dead," she burst out passionately, her voice muffled by the linen sheets. "I wish he were dead and I was free to marry- to marry as I pleased."

Cat sighed. "You were joined as man and wife before the Seven, to cleave fast to one-another until parted by death. It's wicked to wish those things and you know it."

"I don't care." Lysa jerked her head up. "And you know what else I wish for? I wish your Lord Eddard were dead as well so we could stay together at Riverrun forever. We could raise your baby together, he'd be our baby." _My baby. _

"You are overwrought," Cat said, gentle yet firm.. "Shh. It's not right to wish such things, not right to say them. Lord Eddard is a-"

"You want it too, don't you?" Lysa said suddenly, with a sister's sharp intuition. "You want to stay at Riverrun too, with Father and me and your baby. What would you do at Winterfell?" Childishly she repeated the hearth tales their nurse would tell them when they were still little girls in the nursery. "It's cold and they're all barbarians, all coarse and dirty, north of the Neck. And Winterfell is just next to the Wall, you know. Snarks and grumkins. You don't want to go there."

"I was promised to Brandon when I was twelve," Cat reminded her. "I have had years to accustom myself to the thought of living in Winterfell. Why should I mind?"

"But that was with Brandon," Lysa reminded her. "You loved him. You would have gone anywhere with him."

Cat's hand lay still on the top of Lysa's head. For a long moment she said nothing. Lysa looked up into her sister's face. It was a face as still as a stonemason might carve, blank eyes and lips folded into a neat line. Then her sister closed her eyes. When she opened them among, they were as serene as ever, the unclouded eyes of a innocent young girl. It was as though nothing had happened, as though Cat had not locked away a part of herself forever.

"Brandon Stark is dead," Cat said quietly. "And I am alive."

_Just like my baby, _Lysa thought. _My sweet little baby. _"Doesn't it hurt?" she whispered. She couldn't help but poke and prod into the wound. It gave her a queer, ugly sort of pleasure to probe further, to hurt Cat. She wanted to hurt her just as she had been hurt.

"If I thought about it, it would," Cat said quietly. "But I do not think of it at all. It is in the past and now my duty is to my son and my husband. I ask you as my sister not to bring this up again. Please." There was a thread of steel in her voice and Lysa knew that her sister was now tethering at the edge, almost past endurance.

"I beg your pardon."

Lysa rose and settled down on the window-seat, drawing her legs up and resting her chin on her knees as though she were a small child. From Cat's window she could see the Wheel Tower, green with ivy, and the willows trailing their lacy skirts into the swift waters of the Tumblestone. The meadows were yellow with primroses, the color of fresh-churned butter. At the edge of her vision, she could see the scarlet leaves of the slender weirwood.

_In the north they keep to the old gods, _she thought. Should his father ever return to claim him, the babe in Cat's arms would grow tall, would one day kiss his bride and name his own sons under the watch of the weirwoods. So it had been for thousands of years. Lysa asked herself what gods she kept these days, and could not find an answer.

"It is so warm now," Cat said, shifting in her bed. "It will be spring soon, I think."

Lysa thought of the last spring the gods had given them - the Year of the False Spring, they called it now for it had been followed by winter's treachery. She shuddered. "I wonder if he loves her," she murmured. She did not have to specify who she meant.

"Lyanna Stark?" Cat asked her. "Who? Robert Baratheon or Prince Rhaegar?"

"Both. Either." Lysa gnawed her lip. "I wonder if they think of her when they are alone in their tents, after they have washed the day's blood from themselves. I wonder if it is her face they see when they pray to the Warrior to lend strength to their arm and the Maid to give them courage."

"They must," Cat said reasonably. "They are fighting for her."

They weren't, not really, they both knew. But it was a comfortable fantasy, one that bards all over the riverlands and probably everywhere else had eagerly embraced. The dragon and the stag at war over the northern rose. A maid with eyes like evening stars and hair as dark as the night. Lysa remembered the Stark girl, scratched knees and patched hems and tangled hair, wild and willful. She wondered what would happen to her after the war was done.

It made no matter to her and Cat which side won, not really - either they would be shipped off to their husbands or new ones would be found for such eligible young heiresses by the crown. If the Mad King lived, he might send for Cat's baby, the new Lord Stark - to slay him for a traitor's son or keep him as a ward, as it suited his fancy. _Or Father might hide him, _she thought. _And send s__ome other baby, a butcher's get, a baker's, to the king. _But Lyanna...

"Do you think she's still alive?" Cat asked softly. "I know it is ill wishing to say such a thing but..."

She hesitated. There had been no news of the girl for over a year, not after she had disappeared with Prince Rhaegar. There were whispers that he had kept her away for his pleasure far, far away but they knew nothing for certain. For sure she was not in King's Landing, but that was all. Lysa remembered how Brandon Stark had reacted after he had heard, remembered what was said of the Targaryens and the fire in their blood. She shivered. No, she would not like to be Lyanna Stark though she would be remembered forever in the songs.

_The maids in the songs are always fair, _she thought. _Fair and young and dead before their time. _

"She's either dead or wishing she were," Lysa said bluntly.

Cat sighed. "I pray not," she said simply. "I pray that she lives and that Robert, gods be good, wins. I pray that they are reunited for he loves her and she- why she must surely love him now, no matter what she thought of him before. If he does not... gods know what the King might do." Her eyes rested on her innocent son's head and Lysa could sense the raw fear in her sister. _The Prince took a maiden, highborn and promised, for his sport and the King hung her brother and father when they went to defend her honour.__ What might they not to do to a rebel's son, a rebel's grandson, babe though he is?  
_

"Edmure will be sent away as planned. And Father has spoken to Violet," she said, naming their cook. "She has a brother who is a miller in a village some miles south of Riverrun. His wife has just had a baby boy too, their third, red hair and blue eyes. If- if the worst comes to the worst and the King asks for my son, we will send him the child."

_His wife will be so sad, _Lysa thought, pitying the poor woman. But she would not dare say a thing, not to the lord. That was the way of the world. The ugliness of it, Cat's willingness to do what she thought needed to be done did not surprise her. But that did not mean she had to like it.

_But I would do no less for my own baby, _she thought, wondering if it had been Violet who had brewed the tea for her when Father commanded her. Or had it been some hedgewitch or perhaps even the midwife who had served Cat? It could be any old woman with the skills, any woman who would murder a babe in his mother's womb for a gold dragon or perhaps even less.

_My baby, Petyr's baby, I would have given up my life for him but he was not even worth a dragon. _

"Excuse me, sister," she said. "I think I need a breath of fresh air."

Cat nodded, dismissing Lysa with a wave of her hand. "Could you send one of the maids with some tea for me? Chamomile tea. The herbs will do me good."

_The herbs, _Lysa thought dully. _They murdered my precious baby with their herbs. _"Of course, Cat. Rest for now." She shut the door gently on her sister and nephew.

The sun was shining brightly as she made her way down the open outer staircase to the gardens. On the way, she sent a maid scurrying to the kitchen for tea for the Lady Catelyn. _Be spring soon, _Lysa thought, remembering what her sister had said. She tilted her face upwards to the pleasant warmth of the sun and dropped down under a bower of wildflowers. She had played at kissing with Cat and Petyr under that same bower not so many years before.

_He was such a bold little boy, _she thought and suddenly she was smiling through a mist of tears. _He tried to put his tongue in our mouths. Cat didn't like it but I did. _

Her fingers seemed to work of their own will, catching up the small yellow flowers that were sprinkled over the grass like droplets of sunshine made solid and braiding them into a garland. _And on our way to Seagard, we stopped under Tristifer's statue. The Hammer of Justice they called him - Father told us the story and Petyr made wreaths for our hair. Cat played at being Jenny of Oldstones and Petyr her Prince of Dragonflies. I sang for them... _

It hurt to remember but she could not forget, the memories rushed through her like the waters during a flood. She wondered how Cat could forget. _She has a heart of stone if she can truly forget, _she thought, suddenly too tired to even wipe away at her tears, too weary to even pretend at dignity. She wept her heart out in the warm sunshine, her fingers working mechanically with the flowers. And when she was too limp to cry anymore, when there was nothing left to cry for, not youth or innocence or love or the baby she had made with Petyr, she put on her necklace of golden petals.

She was sitting there, quiet and self-contained and completely blank, when Edmure found her. He came bounding towards her, breathless and laughing and caught her round the waist. Marq Piper, Father's ward, was right behind him. In their excitement, the boys were quite incoherent.

"Raven... just now..." Edmure cried, twirling her round and round.

"There's been a battle... a great battle... at the Green Fork and the Prince..." Marq said.

"Prince Rhaegar's dead!" Edmure burst out. "Robert Baratheon killed him and _we won,__ Lysa, we won_!"

"_What_?" Lysa screamed, shaking him. "Tell me now! Have we won the war, is the King..."

"Only the Prince," Marq said exultantly. "But his forces have scattered and- and your lord father says we're sure to win now!"

"They're calling it the Ruby Ford now," Edmure said, collapsing at the grass at her feet. "The Green Fork, I mean. Robert smashed his warhammer right through Prince Rhaegar's chest-"

"Like this," Marq demonstrated, with his hands. "Pow! Like that."

"And he knocked the rubies right out of the Prince's breastplate. They fought together with the battle raging all around them."

"Prince Lewyn Martell's dead," Marq said.

"My husband?" Lysa asked, remembering him. "Is he-"

"He's well," Edmure said. "As is Lord Eddard. He's rushing to King's Landing right now."

_Isn't he always rushing off somewhere? _

"And I suppose my gallant husband is playing nursemaid to Robert Baratheon now," she said dryly. "Uncle Brynden - is he well?" Their father had been grievously wounded at Stoney Sept and had returned to them but their uncle was still in the field.

"Yes," Edmure said shortly. But the man of the moment was Robert Baratheon, it was clear her young brother was in awe of him. "Robert spared Ser Barristan, though he was almost dying. He's joined them now. He's chivalrous, Robert is." His eyes grew troubled. "He's wounded though. That's why Lord Eddard's racing with the army to King's Landing in his place. Prince Rhaegar dealt him a grievous blow but he's recovering."

"Where's Father?" Lysa demanded, pulling Edmure up.

"With Cat," Edmure said. "I was in the rookery so I heard first and then I came rushing to tell you while Maester Vyman went to Father..."

"Come on," Lysa said, holding out her other hand for Marq. "We should be with them now." She ran with them, heedless of the impropriety of her skirts flying up her legs. _What a slattern I must look, _she thought, her hair coming loose from her braids. _But gods, I don't care. Gods, even Cat won't care, not today. _

They burst into Cat's chamber. Miraculously, the baby was still asleep in her arms. Father, Maester Vyman and Septon Osmynd stood around her bed. Cat's smile, usually so measured and cautious, was as brilliant as summer sunshine today.

"Robb," she murmured, kissing the top of her baby's head. "He is to be named Robb. For Robert Baratheon."

"For your husband's best friend," Lysa said. "Robb Stark." She tasted the name on the tip of her tongue and nodded approval. "A fine name."

Her father smiled at her. "A kingly name," he said quietly. "May the gods smile down upon Robert Baratheon, the First of his Name."

_He might not live, _she thought, remembering that he had been wounded terribly. _But then, _she thought. _He might. It will be spring soon and perhaps soon Robert Baratheon will be our king. _Perhaps there was hope left.

"May the gods smile down upon him," she echoed her father and touched Robb's soft little cheek tenderly. "For he will need it now more than ever, now at the beginning of the end."


	2. Ashara: The Tower of Joy

The sky was the color of a bleached bone and the world shimmered in a haze of heat.

In the confinement chamber, the shutters had been unlatched and thrown open. A wave of hot air and fine red sand wafted in, but it was better than the stultifying dampness when the windows had been kept shut. Stripped down to her smock, Ashara lay coiled like a snake waiting only to pounce, on the window-seat.

On the bed, the sick girl lay trancelike, somewhere between sleep and awareness. Trapped. Her shift clung to her, wet with sweat, outlining the long, coltish legs, the narrow hips and breasts still small and pointed even in her ninth month... and the great mound of her belly. She would not have an easy time of it, of that Ashara was sure. She was scarcely sixteen, little more than a child who would endure her travail without mother or husband or kin of any sort. Ashara would have pitied any other woman in her position but not this one.

_She made her fate for herself, _she thought cruelly. _Let her lie in the bed of her choosing. _

One of her women bathed the girl's temples with a linen cloth soaked in lavender water. She was burning up with fever and nothing they could do seemed to help her. A maester might have been able to help her, one learned in the lore of the Citadel. She was a great lord's daughter, she would have been a great lord's wife. She should have had such a maester to bring her safely through the storm. But she did not, she had only a handful of Ashara's waiting women and a Dornish midwife.

The girl mumbled something.

"What is she saying?" Ashara asked the woman irritably.

The woman stooped to listen. "My lady was asking if she might have oranges and limes. From the orchard."

"She need not ask," Ashara said maliciously. "Remind her that she is a Princess of House Targaryen. She can have all the oranges she wants for the taking as she has taken everything else with but a word and a flutter of her lashes. Bring some up for her and send for Wylla." She snapped her fingers at the woman, dismissing her.

Then she rose and went to the great bed herself, looking down at the girl with distaste. When she had first seen her at Harrenhal, Lyanna Stark had been a bonny maid of four-and-ten. Roses in her cheeks and laughter-brimmed eyes. Now she was as pale as a corpse buried in snow, her eyes half-shut. Her hands were skeletal in their thinness but still they clutched fiercely a wreath of faded roses. Rhaegar's roses. She had kept them all these years.

Ashara sighed and began to wash the sweat rolling off the girl's brow with a cold, damp cloth.

"You hate me." Lyanna Stark's eyes sprung open quite suddenly, burning with the hectic brilliancy of fever. All the color seemed to have leached out of her eyes, in her haggard, white face they were quite ghastly.

"You should rest now," Ashara told her curtly. She did not care to exchange more words than necessary with the girl. "You're in no fit state to be speaking."

Willful as ever, the chit ignored her. She rose from the pillows, leaning on her elbow for support. Her hair hung in a tangled, limp mess about her shoulders and down her back.

_And this is the maid they call the loveliest in all the wide world, _Ashara thought with a trace of sour amusement. _The rose of minstrels' songs. _Once upon a time, when she'd been a girl at court they would called her the loveliest. Either her or Cersei.

_And what bitter foes we were, _Ashara thought, remembering all the scrapes they'd gotten into together. _Her in service to the Queen and me to the Princess. Rhaella never did take to Elia, she never would to any wife her beloved son's. _She hadn't seen Cersei in years, not since the Year of the False Spring when the door to her girlhood closed forever. _Only two years. It might as well have been twenty. _

Lyanna's voice cracked as she spoke, it scarcely rose above a hoarse whisper but speak she would. She'd always been stubborn, damnably so. "I deserve it," she said. "But I thank you for being with me now." She hesitated as though it cost her much to say the next words. "I'm scared, Ashara. I'm so scared."

_All women near their time are, _Ashara would have told her if it had been any other woman. _It shall pass quickly. _She would have told her a story to pass the time, a riddle or a jape to make mock of her fears. But not for this little demon.

"I promised the princess, I would," she said stiffly. "I do it for duty's sake, not for love of you nor charity, my lady." And then because she could not help herself, "Not that you would know anything of duty."

The girl dropped her eyes, as though shamed. But she was as brazen as brass, Ashara doubted that she had any shame in her at all.

"We were like sisters," Ashara told Lyanna. "My mother died in childbed when I was six years old. My father sent Arthur to serve as a royal page and me to the court at Sunspear to attend on Princess Elia. She brought me up, you could say, and when I was eleven I attended her when she went as a bride to King's Landing. She was a good woman, gentle and gracious. She was born to be queen."

_And you governed only by your passions to be a whore, _Ashara thought.

A spark flared in Lyanna's eyes. "And I was chosen to be," she said, as sweet as poison. She lay one hand protectively over her belly. "Rhaegar told me I would have a girl. He told me to name her Visenya, he said she would ride dragons."

"The dragons are all dead."

"So you think," Lyanna said smugly. The fight was in her now that she'd been stirred up. She hardly looked sick at all. "Ask your princess when you see her next."

"And what if I never see her?" Ashara was unable to stop herself from saying. She curled her fists into balls. "What if your betrothed defeats the Prince? Not that it will matter to _you_, he'll take you back for love of your brother even though you're spoiled goods. But Elia..."

"It won't happen," Lyanna said, serenely stubborn as always. "Rhaegar will defeat Robert and come for me after my baby is born. Elia and I, we will be his queens." There was a tender little smile on her face now as though she was remembering the days when they had been alone together in the Tower of Joy, running wild like children in love. "I miss him so."

She sagged back into her pillows, as though exhausted by all the talking. Her eyelids drooped and suddenly she was like a child again. "I still remember when I first saw him at Harrenhal. He was so beautiful, so pure. You danced with Ned that day. He was mad for you, I remember. Brandon asked you to dance with him because he was too shy to."

"He was a good dancer," Ashara said, trying to smile. She could not let Lyanna suspect, not now after they had been at such pains to keep the news from her. "He didn't look the type but he was... he was gentle and courteous. A sweet, dear boy I thought."

Lyanna giggled. "He always was. Did you like him?"

He was as unlike any of the swaggering whippersnappers she was used to at court as could be. How could she help but not like him? He reminded her so of her Elia sometimes. "I did."

"Perhaps..." Lyanna said sleepily, "perhaps you can get to know him better. After all the fighting is done. He can come to court after Brandon and Catelyn are married..."

_Aye but your brother's already wed, my lady, _Ashara thought. _To the hangman's noose. _"That would be lovely," she forced herself to say. There was a tap on the door saving her need to answer any further. News came slowly here in the Dornish Marches and they kept most of it from Lyanna. She had wept a storm and beat her fists bloody on the walls when Rhaegar had to leave her with his knights. What would she do if she heard of what had been done to her father and beloved brother? What would she do, in her madness, to Rhaegar's child?

Wylla entered, swinging her sachet of herbs and a basket of oranges. She was a bonny wren of a woman who'd served at Starfall as wet-nurse for Ashara's half-sister, little Allyria. She was learned in the midwife's trade as well. A good woman to have at hand and yet she was no maester.

_He did not send for a maester, _Ashara remembered with a chill. _He put it in my hands to pick a midwife for his bride, without concerning himself about it, and he must have known she would have a hard time of it, her so young and slightly-built. Why?_

Rhaegar Targaryen never did anything without a purpose, that she well knew. What did this foretell for Lyanna?

"Blood oranges I plucked from the orchards myself," Wylla said proudly, bustling over to Lyanna. "So tender and sweet aye. We'll build up your appetite, my lady, no fear, you've only picked like a bird at your food for days and that shan't do at all. You'll need to build up your strength for the babe, can't be long now..."

"We used to pluck oranges together," Lyanna mumbled. There was no need for her to mention who 'we' was.

Wylla stooped to pick the wreath of crumbling roses from the bed but Lyanna's hands tightened on it. "No," she said. "It stays."

Wylla pursed up her lips. "Now that won't do, my lady. You can't have suchlike about you, it'll spread contagion..."

"It stays." And that was that.

Wylla sighed like a martyr. "If you're going down, Lady Ashara, your brother's looking for you," Wylla said, rising to accompany Ashara to the door. Out of Lyanna's hearing she whispered, "The poor little thing. She's not long for the world, I do believe."

"She's too narrow and young," Ashara agreed. "But Elia was the same and she bore two healthy children. And the prince might send a maester, surely he will..."

Wylla sighed. "Go to your brother, my lady," she said. "He's in the sept. No don't stop to ask me, go to him." Then she raised her voice as though forcing herself to be cheerful. "And how would my lady like a scented bath now, hmm?"

Deeply troubled, Ashara slipped on a loose outer robe of sage-green sandsilk and donned her kidskin slippers. She slipped out of the tower room which Lyanna and the prince had shared, where she supposed they had once lay in bed for hours feeding each other blood oranges and picking out shapes in the clouds. She took the stairs two at a time in her haste and ran down the hall to the sept.

In her haste, her foot slipped out of her shoe and skid halfway down the nave, across the slippery flagstones.

"Sister."

Arthur turned around and gave her a wan smile. He was sitting on a bench, all alone in the little sept that Elia had loved. _She was always so pious, _Ashara thought and suddenly she knew what he was going to tell her. And yet she could feel nothing, not grief or rage or horror or even blankness. _Gods bless her. I hope she went gently. _

She didn't want him to tell her. She wanted the blessed peacefulness of not knowing, of delaying for as long as she could. So she put on her slipper slowly and then sat down next to him.

"Ser Gerold is on watch duty?" she asked him, pretending that this was a normal day and that he had no special news for her.

Arthur nodded and absently tousled her hair. They were full siblings, but he took after their Velaryon mother with his silvery-fair hair and she after the Daynes, dark-haired. But their eyes were violet, marking them of the high blood of Old Valyria. _Kings' blood, gods' blood. _Three daughters of House Velaryon and one of House Dayne had been Targaryen Queens in their time, innumerable ones had been lesser princesses.

"The King has set Chelsted aside. Rossart rules as Hand now."

"The pyromancer?" Ashara gasped, eyes widening. She had been present at a demonstration of wildfire the pyromancers' guild had set up at court once. King Aerys had been entranced. "No! Gods above, how? Why?"

Arthur shrugged as though he did not really care. He put his arm around her shoulder and sagged against her. Her strong, brave, big brother. "The raven came not an hour ago from the capital."

Ashara swallowed. "Was that the only news it brought?" she asked, her voice very small. She could not ask him outright, though it was madness not to know. _How is Elia? How are the children? _Prince Aegon had smiled at her the day she left, smiled as though he knew her. Princess Rhaenys had been playing with her kitten when she had bidden her farewell. 'Balerion', the precocious little chit had named the fluffy black kitten.

_When will you come back, Ashara? _the little girl had wanted to know.

_Soon my pet, _she'd said. _Soon I hope._

Rhaenys had pouted. _That's what Viserys said when he left with Grandmother but he's been gone away forever. _The Queen and Prince Viserys were safe in their stronghold at Dragonstone, she was with child. But Elia... Elia had no protection. _Did she die naturally, waste away, my poor lady? Or was it the King? He calls her good-daughter but she is his hostage all the same._She did not trust Aerys Targaryen. Only a fool would.

"No."

"Is it...?"

Arthur looked her and said quickly, "No Ashara, its not Elia. She's safe, the children are well."

"Oh." Ashara felt dizzy, her body as weak as water all of a certain. "Oh thank the gods. Is it the King? What has-"

Arthur's voice held no emotion as he said, "Its Rhaegar. He's dead."

Ashara put her hand to her mouth, gasping. But Arthur rode her over before she could say anything. She could see it cost him all his strength to speak of practical matters, to put aside his grief for the friend of his childhood, his prince, and tell her what was to be done. He had loved Rhaegar just as she had loved Elia. They were more than brothers, they were bound together.

"Robert Baratheon killed him on the Green Fork," he said brutally. "Eddard Stark rides hard for King's Landing with his levies now and gods know what will come of it. You cannot stay here any longer, its not safe for you."

"Elia told me-"

"It will do you no good to linger here," Arthur said. "I've thought over it. Wylla will stay here to deliver the babe, it can't be many days now she told me. Then we'll send them to Starfall - where you shall go today with your women. From there you will join the Queen at Dragonstone or sail to the Free Cities with the child, depending on the fortunes of the battle. You have your orders."

Ashara nodded numbly. She had her orders from Rhaegar, just as he had his. "Lyanna will not come with the child?"

Arthur shook his head. "She's Stark's sister," he said. "She'll be safe here if he comes for her. But not the child. I will stay to guard her but we will not give up the child to him."

"She won't give up her baby," Ashara thought, thinking of the sick girl who was so much stronger than she looked.

Arthur gave her a blank look, without any softness left in it. "She'll have to. I have my orders and I mean to carry them out." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Prepare your things. You'll have to leave today. You will have much to see to at Starfall preparing for your departure." He gave her a light push, as though he knew that she would not be able to move by herself if he did not help her. "Go now, sister."

Ashara swallowed hard. "I should say farewell to her," she said numbly.

"You can't," Arthur said simply. "We cannot let her suspect. Wylla told me she is ill enough already." His voice told her that she might die. His voice told her that he did not care whether she did or not. Rhaegar was dead and now her brother's duty lay to the unborn child, not to the child-bride.

Ashara bit her lip. _So I will disappear from her life just like everyone else. Like her father and brother and now the husband she gave everything up for. _A widow of sixteen, heavily pregnant. Who could not pity her? And then she thought of Elia and she felt as though her heart would break. _What will she tell the children? Or will she keep them in ignorance, as we keep Lyanna?  
_

"We might prevail yet," she forced herself to say. "King's Landing can hold against a siege for years. Highgarden has laid siege to Baratheon's brothers, Casterly Rock is still undecided."

"We might," Arthur said simply. "We might not. It is not for us to say." He touched her shoulder gently. "Go Ashara."

She left Elia's sept slowly, wondering whether she would ever come back again. Wondering whether she would ever see Elia again or Lyanna Stark.


End file.
